The invention refers to an articulated corkscrew, of the type incorporating a handle to which a spiral worm is joined for insertion into and removal of the cork; a support arm intended to rest on the mouth of the bottle is joined to this handle in an articulated manner, constituting the fulcrum on which the handle tilts and allowing the latter to act as a second-class lever.
More specifically, the invention concerns a corkscrew in whose support arm two articulated sections are established, provided with respective stepped areas which rest on the bottle""s mouth and act sequentially, and focuses on a special configuration in said arm that substantially improves its functionality, and as a result, the functionality of the corkscrew as a whole.
Within the wide range of corkscrews on the market, one of the usual solutions consists of having a spiral worm based on a rod with a sharp, pointed free end, intended to be inserted axially into the cork of the bottle, a spiral worm which is joined at its upper end to a handle in an articulated manner; on the one hand, this handle facilitates the insertion of the spiral worm into the cork, and on the other hand, it allows later axial traction on the worm in order to extract the cork, to which effect the aforementioned handle incorporates an articulated arm on one of its ends, which rests on the bottle""s mouth, and which by acting as a fulcrum makes the corkscrew a second-class lever.
This arm, which is conventionally a single piece, is too long when the act of extracting the cork is begun, and too short when said extraction reaches its end, all according to the degree of extraction of the cork with respect to the bottle, and thus there are different known solutions to increase the effectiveness of the support arm as extraction of the cork takes place.
In this sense, European Patent EP 0955264 A1 should be mentioned as an example, in which a corkscrew is described whose support arm is provided with lateral grooves or channels, in the shape of an xe2x80x9cL,xe2x80x9d in which a pin forming the swing axis for the handle takes part, so that according to the position said pin occupies in the lateral grooves, an effective length is achieved for the arm as a whole. This solution, while efficient, involves a noticeably complicated maneuver which is relatively difficult to perform.
Another solution, reflected in Spanish Utility Model U 9602975, consists of setting a second arm on the central area of the support arm; this second arm is considerably shorter and swings, and as a swinging arm is capable of being projected towards the inside of the arm, to constitute a first support point, when an external appendage that goes through the main arm is acted upon. The basic problem with this solution is the high risk that the user may get his or her fingers caught by this intermediate swinging arm.
Another solution is the one reflected in Spanish Utility Model U 9200910, where two physically-independent axial sections are established in the support arm, joined to each other in an articulated manner and provided with respective rests, so that during the initial phase of extracting the cork the first section of the arm is used, with its respective rest acting on the bottle""s mouth, while in the final phase of extracting the cork the second section of the arm becomes operational, with its rest being placed on the bottle""s mouth, thus increasing the effectiveness of the arm as a whole, so that the latter satisfactorily performs its function.
However, this simple articulated joint between the arm""s two sections makes a deliberate manual maneuver necessary to set the second section of the arm onto the bottle""s rim or mouth, which is awkward at the very least.
On the other hand, during the normal use of the corkscrew and after a relatively short period of time, the axis through which the arm is joined to the handle or body in an articulated manner suffers wear and tear, causing a slackness that prevents the body and arm from staying aligned, so that said arm swings toward a vertical position through mere gravity, hindering the action of placing it on the cork and hurting the hand that holds the bottle.
The characteristics of the corkscrew that is proposed, which is of the last type of those mentioned above, in other words, of the type incorporating a support arm with two articulated sections capable of acting independently and sequentially by resting on the bottle""s mouth, focus on the fact that the aforementioned sections are related to each other, apart from through the aforementioned swing axis, through a spring that causes the second rest, the one corresponding to the end section, to seek out on its own the bottle""s side or mouth where it is to be situated, with no need for the person who is opening the bottle to deliberately perform this maneuver.
In accordance with another of the characteristics of the invention, a spring is set at the level of the articulated joint between the arm and body or handle, whose ends form aligned and opposing pivots that emerge laterally from the body and that act on the inner face of the arm""s lateral branches, where the arm incorporates a circumferential arrangement of notches that must be xe2x80x9cjumpedxe2x80x9d by the aforementioned pivots during the swinging movement of the arm with respect to the body, which prevents accidental or undesired movement between these two components, no matter what position is chosen for them.